Solid Records: MPS & More
Human Music
*2024 stock* "This 1969 avant-garde collaboration between trumpeter Don Cherry and electronics pioneer Jon Appleton was originally released on legendary jazz producer Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label. Consisting of four compositions with the titles 'Boa,' 'Oba,' 'Abo,' and 'Bao,' Human Music finds Cherry stretching out on various flutes and African percussion instruments in addition to pocket trumpet. Original artwork. Detailed liner notes." Includes two bonus tracks, "Don" and "Jon".
At the d…
Bolivia
*2024 stock* "Ultimately, Bolivia is a sensual, musically adept, and groundbreaking recording, which offered Barbieri a chance to come in from the avant-garde before heading back to the fringes with the Latin America series. A fine effort that is finally getting the notoriety it deserves." - AllMusic
Fenix
*2024 stock* The Flying Dutchman's second album, which shifted from the free jazz of the 60s to the passionate jazz sound of the 70s. As the title suggests, this is a popular work that combines hot brooding and melancholy with burning Latin blood. A Japanese version was also released at the time and is one of the most popular.
The Third World
*2024 stock* Gato Barbieri is an Argentine jazz musician who won a Grammy Award as musical director for the film Last Tango in Paris. The Flying Dutchman's debut album, produced by Bob Seale, boldly incorporates elements of South American music.
Inner Space
*2023 stock* "Japanese pianist Yosuke Yamashita built his name as one of the country's avant-garde jazz leader with his bass-less trio founded still in 1969 (with drummer Takeo Moriyama and tenorist Seiichi Nakamura, in 1973 Nakamura has been changed by alto sax player Akira Sakata). Early-mid 70s were all years of trio's fame documented by representative collection of studio and live albums, all containing high energy fast and tight strongly improvisation music.Year 1977 was a transitional for …
Clay
*Limited Edition* Delve into the mesmerizing trio work of Japanese pianist Yosuke Yamashita, accompanied by the exceptional reed performances of Akira Sakata. This collaboration, a highlight in 70s Japanese jazz, epitomizes a robust avant-garde impulse. Drummer Takeo Moriyama adds a thoughtful and spacious dimension to the ensemble, navigating the dynamics adeptly. Sakata's clarinet produces searing sounds, and his alto saxophone exhibits formidable force. The album includes an extended renditio…
Trinity
*Limited Edition* Japanese pianist Masahiko Sato joins forces with Peter Warren on bass and Pierre Favre on drums in an enthralling collaboration. Recorded live at Studio 70 in Munich, the two expansive tracks showcase the trio's boundless creativity. Sato's piano work, reminiscent of the era's best free improvisation, occasionally channels a Cecil Taylor-like intensity, interspersed with moments of reflective pause. Favre adeptly balances restraint and bursts of energy, complementing Warren's b…
Distant Thunder
*2024 stock* The Yamashita Trio on tour in Germany in 1975 had a miraculous encounter with free improv genius Manfred Shcoof! This is a too hot live recording of the live performance with Yosuke Yamashita, Akira Sakata, Takeo Moriyama, and Manfred Schoof, who responded aggressively with their whole heart and soul!
Payan
*2024 stock* Lovely 1972 solo work by one of the most influential European avant-garde pianists of the last half-century; a player whose improvisational flexibility puts him in the same league as Cecil Taylor, but whose ability to concentrate at moments and knowledge of jazz history make him much more remarkable! One of Alexander Von Schlippenbach's finest albums; it's beautiful all the way through, with an unfaltering inventiveness that occasionally leads to Monkish moments or Herbie Nichols wh…
Hannibal
Ludwigsburg, 1 and 2 July 1975. Hannibal Marvin Peterson's first record for MPS, with Diedre Murray's cello, Michael Cochrane's piano, Stafford James and Thabo Michael Carvin. Two modal originals, a version of Misty, The Voyage with Hannibal on koto, and the fourteen-minute Soul Brother for Malcolm X.
Hannibal In Berlin
Berlin Philharmonie, 3 November 1976. Hannibal with George Adams on tenor, Diedre Murray on cello, Michael Cochrane, Steve Neil and Allen Nelson. His own 23rd Psalm, Coltrane's Bessie's Blues and My Favorite Things, Willow Weep for Me, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot as a memory of the Texas cotton fields.
The Hip Walk
Villingen, 1965. Nathan Davis, the Kansas City tenor who had shared a Paris band with Eric Dolphy, records his second SABA album with a fellow Kansas Citian, Carmell Jones, just off Song for My Father, and the Clarke-Boland rhythm section: Francy Boland, Jimmy Woode, Kenny Clarke. Includes The Hip Walk.
Happy Girl
Nathan Davis's first record as a leader, cut at the SABA studio in Villingen on 31 January 1965 with a twenty-year-old Woody Shaw on trumpet, Larry Young on piano rather than organ, Jimmy Woode on bass and Billy Brooks on drums. Tenor, soprano and flute in the Paris expatriate style of the mid-1960s.
Touché
Studio Tempo, Montreal, 19 July 1996. Kenny Wheeler and Paul Bley, two Canadians who left for New York forty years earlier, in duo for the first time on record. Thirteen short pieces, seven by Wheeler and six by Bley, alternating; trumpet and flugelhorn against a piano that leaves most of the space empty.
Flight For Four
Los Angeles, 1969. The first record of the John Carter - Bobby Bradford Quartet, the West Coast free jazz band Ornette Coleman had brought together in 1965, with Tom Williamson on bass and Bruz Freeman on drums. Five Carter pieces for Bob Thiele's new Flying Dutchman, from Call to the Festival to Domino.
Small Talk At 125th And Lenox
A New Black Poet: Gil Scott-Heron's first record, 1970, a book of poems read in front of an audience with three percussionists, Eddie Knowles, Charlie Saunders and David Barnes, produced by Bob Thiele. The first version of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Whitey on the Moon, and the title piece.
Pieces Of A Man
RCA Studios, 19 and 20 April 1971. Gil Scott-Heron's first studio album, with Brian Jackson on piano, Ron Carter, Hubert Laws, Bernard Purdie and Burt Jones, produced by Bob Thiele. The band version of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Lady Day and John Coltrane, Home Is Where the Hatred Is.
Astral Traveling
Lonnie Liston Smith's first album under his own name, 1973, straight out of the Pharoah Sanders band and the Thembi sessions where the title track was born on a Fender Rhodes. Cecil McBee, Joe Beck, Badal Roy on tabla, Mtume on congas, a tamboura. Six pieces, produced by Bob Thiele for Flying Dutchman.
Blackbird
Martinique, December 1984. Jaco Pastorius and Rashied Ali, Coltrane's last drummer, on stage together at the end of a workshop, taped for French radio. Bass and drums alone. Released by Timeless; Pastorius died three years later. Never issued in the US until the Music On Vinyl LP.
Above And Beyond
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, 28 April 2003. The Billy Bang Quintet with Frank Lowe on tenor, Andrew Bemkey on piano, Todd Nicholson on bass and Tatsuya Nakatani on drums. Lowe was playing with one lung. He died that September, and this is his last recording.
Bang and Lowe went back to the loft years and had made a run of duo and group records together. Justin Time, which had Bang under contract for Vietnam: The Aftermath and its sequel, released the tape in 2007…